January 6, 2010

Once again, it's been awhile.. and once again, there is so much to be said! Where to begin, where to begin...

Well, it's been two months since we left Lewis County (the first time).. two months of driving from state to state with gaping face in awe of the changing terrain, curling my knees up into my chest in an attempt to get a good nights sleep in the car, entertaining strangers and relatives and being entertained by... well, just about anything and anyone, wearing the same clothes day after day until they become just another layer of skin, shaving my armpits in walmart restrooms entirely unaware that anyone else is there until I hear a toilet flush, running miles and miles through towns I don't know and don't care to know the names of. It's been two months of granola for breakfast, granola for lunch, granola for dinner, three large jars of peanut butter, fresh bananas on a semi-daily basis, filling my SIGG bottles every chance I get and then slowly, critically evaluating its taste before guzzling the rest regardless of how great or terrible it is.. ah, it's been two months, two months.

Today I no longer want to travel. Today I want to lay in bed all morning before being escorted to a sporting goods store where I will buy brand new expensive Brooks running shoes, which I will charge to my credit card. Then I will come back to this room with this big comfortable bed and I will put on my cute little running shorts and my cute little running top and my beautiful new running shoes, toss my long clean hair and pull it into a cute little ponytail, strap on the brand new garmin watch that I don't have, and run for at least 90 minutes. 90 minutes and I just might begin to feel like I could attempt to be normal again.

There's something brand new associated with freedom for me these days. Friends, this is freedom: waking up everyday with no place to be, no thing to do, no one to respond to (other than my beyond incredible Traveling Companion). It is being drawn into the ocean at midnight on the coast of Florida, twirling into the salty water and crashing into the moonlit waves. It is driving hundreds of miles on a deserted road in Texas and jumping out before the car has fully stopped in order that I might prance around on the dotted yellow line while waiting for the evening haze to set in and the sun to become one with the ground. It is picking tangerines off a tree in the hills surrounding LA and wandering aimlessly through an Asian community entirely unaware of the time. It is walking into a church in California and asking, through unpreventable tears, to play the piano.. because I just need to. It is longing for an entire day to sit and drink warm beverages and read and write and contemplate life, and getting it. It is paying $4 for unlimitted multi-grain pancakes and staying all night to eat pancakes and convince ourselves of the possibilities this life might hold. It is, It is..

I could go on and on..

But today I am tired of traveling. Yesterday I saw a grove of trees that were 25ft around and as tall as a 19 story building. That's enough to change my entire life. How does one touch, love and experience a tree so regal and lovely without missing something or shortchanging it somehow? Oh beautiful Giant Sequoia, you have changed me. I could have sat with you all day and still I would not have known how to leave you.

I fear I am going just a little bit crazy. All this freedom, the farewell to caring what I look like, sound like, appear to be. All this experiencing, loving, living, becoming. All this attention to all these places and all these people joined with all the places inside of me and all the parts that have made this person...

In one month I have to be in Perry Point, MD. Finally, I have been accepted to Americorps. My chance to change the world.. or at least a few people's lives. I am both excited and disappointed. It's strange to have the next year of my life all planned out for me. What's even crazier, tho, is that I still need to make it to Seattle and home in the next four weeks. And I'm tired of traveling.

This beautiful, beautiful trip..I'm sorting out these things inside. I am more me than I've allowed myself to be in a long time. I am beautiful after 7 days without showering. I am scattered over thousands of miles across this incredible country. I am happy, contented, peaceful, alive. I am, I am.